Forget Me Not by Stef Ann Holm Page A

heard of champagne referred to as effervescent. So that must mean to cook the tomatoes until they bubbled up.
    She picked up a can and read the label. There were no instructions on how to open it. A dilemma was brewing. She couldn’t make tomato soup if she couldn’t get the can open. Her headache began to pulse anew at her temples. She put the can down and went into her room to get a butterscotch candy so that she could think better. Once the sweet tidbit was melting against her tongue, she approached the can at a different angle. Perhaps if she gouged it with a knife . . .
    With handle in hand, she raised her arm and readied to stab the lid.
    â€œWhat in the hell are you doing?”
    Josephine’s arm froze, and the butterscotch in her mouth slid down her throat making a lump in her windpipe. She coughed, her chin coming up with a start as J.D. closed the door behind him. He had to step over her discarded sheets in order to enter the kitchen. His boot tip hit a clothespin, and the wooden peg skittered across the floor and hit her in the shoe.
    â€œWhat’s this?” he asked, looking at the clean bedclothes in a bundle. She’d forgotten all about them. Always before when she’d forgotten about something, her maid had tidied it up before she’d remembered what it was she’d forgotten.
    â€œMy sheets,” she half whispered, wishing desperately for a glass of water to drink to dislodge the candy from the center of her chest where it had settled. Self-consciously, she lowered her arm and set down the knife.
    â€œI can see that.” He carried a metal pan with a large, cloth-wrapped piece of meat inside. Splotches of vivid red soiled the linen, making her stomach clench. “What are they doing on the floor?”
    Telling him she’d been distraught over witnessing that helpless cow being readied for slaughter would imply her cowardice at the very least. So she fabricated an answer she hoped sounded credible. “I was anxious to begin supper and didn’t want to spare a minute to make up the bed.”
    J.D. put the pan on the counter, then picked up the sheets. His large bootprint was on one of them. “Do you always throw down what you’re doing to start something else?”
    â€œOnly when I’m inspired.”
    He went to her room to put the linens on her bed. In his brief absence, she used the flat of her palm to pat herself between the breasts. She felt the candy slip down. Gasping, she forced a cool collectedness on herself. Don’t do anything that will make him suspect you are the fraud that you are . She had to look busy. Like she knew what she was doing. Proceeding with the cans was out. What else? What else to do?
    The fire. Check the fire. That was important.
    She acted like a seasoned cook when she fiddled with, moved, and adjusted each damper by its knob—though she had no idea if what she was doing was right.
    â€œAre you finding everything you need?” J.D. asked, having drawn up behind her without her hearing him approach. He stood a respectable few feet from her, but he may as well have stood right on her toes for as close as he was watching her.
    Unable to meet his eyes, she stared at the can and said, “Yes. I have everything I need.”
    â€œExcept an opener for those.”
    She needn’t question what “those” he was referring to. Any simpleton could have figured out she had been about to puncture the can open.
    He pulled out a drawer beneath the counter and came up with a very lethal-appearing apparatus. It had a wooden handle with a short but very sharp-looking blade and catch on the end. He said nothing about her near venture at puncturing the cans with a knife. Without a word, he grabbed a tomato can and jabbed the blade into the edge. He held the can and turned it, running the blade along the rim. There seemed to be a fair amount of strength needed to operate the opener. She wondered if